10 Million Deer Hunters Roll Out for the Rut

by J. Scott Olmsted,

Editor in Chief

This is a big deal. Work will wait, schools will close—all in the name of deer season. Can you feel the wind blow out of the northwest? Oil up your guns. It's opening day.

In the pre-dawn darkness I haul my carcass up the same hill I've climbed for more than 30 years. It's not a long walk, but it's a steep one. I like the spot "up top" because it overlooks a bench deep in the woods where bucks like to bed. It's also close to national park land, which spells "sanctuary" to me. Tapping a little honeyhole like this next to un-huntable land has worked magic for generations.

About halfway up, I pause to keep the lather to a minimum. But it's too late, as the bead of sweat that runs down my back reminds me. I remove my hat and wipe my brow, and my mind wanders to all the bucks we've killed here over the years. The spike I shot over a scrape in muzzleloader season; my oldest son Anthony's first deer; Uncle Steve's 14-pointer and a wide-racked sucker that looked like it belonged in Texas; my brother Marc's two 150-inch whoppers; and the double-mainbeam freak I tagged the day before Thanksgiving just a few years ago—all were taken on this hillside.

Then I think about all the brutes killed by hunters in places that grow bigger bucks than our little piece of the Old Dominion will ever produce. Beginners, one-week-a-year types, diehards, eccentrics—I see every hunter's face, go over every account I've read in magazines in a 10-year span. A choice location is almost always part of the equation. But surely there is chance involved, too. No matter how smart or how persistent we might be, Lady Luck always has her say. How else to explain the first-timers who drop Booners on opening day?

Yes, that's the ticket, that's the key that helps me put one foot in front of the other, sweat be damned. It doesn't matter where one hunts, only that he does so. Luck can shine her light on any of us, anywhere. It doesn't matter whether it's our first step into the woods or if we've spent half our lives there, we need only hunt to join the fraternity. Still, I can't help thinking a nice buck would ice the endeavor. Why can't this be the year I drop a Booner?

So I climb, anxious with the knowledge that it could happen here, now. I'll never know for sure unless I get up top and settle in before the bucks show up after a night of feeding. As inveterate gamblers like to say, "Ya gotta be there for the roll."

Did You Know?

Set up active decoys where you don't want geese to land. Use sleeping and resting decoys to signal the area has been checked out and it's safe enough to drop in and nap.

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11

The number of states that honor the whitetail as a state symbol.

511

Largest-ever body weight, in pounds, of a whitetail.

30 million

U.S. deer population.

1 in 30,000

Ratio of albino deer to typically colored deer.

fast fact

What's in a name? A lot if it's ruffed grouse—or, in Latin, Bonasa umbellus. "Bonasa" refers to being "good when roasted" and "umbellas," or "sunshade," refers to the umbrella-like ruff of neck feathers the male raises during its courtship display.